Main menu

Fix Deep Scratches and Key Marks

Alright, here is a how to guide for you to follow that will give you a step by step to fix deep scratches and key marks on your car.

You’re likely here because some jerk-off that was probably dropped on his head as a kid has decided that it might be a good idea to key your car. You obviously didn’t see the punk because you are here and not in jail and/or a court house suing for damages, or maybe you did catch him and you just hired a Cincinnati criminal lawyer to try your case and you were acquitted of the charges for the end result of your encounter. Joking aside, you’re probably cussing at the fact that you’re likely out of pocket anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand bucks that it’s going to cost you in body work to fix the deep scratches in your paint. Well, my car got keyed…bad, and I managed to fix it without spending more than about 100$ (including beer) to get her looking almost new again.To give you an idea of what I was working with and just how deep scratches on my paints surface were, here is some of the damage that I had.

So here is a step-by-step how-to that you can go about that will lead to the fixing of those deep scratches and key marks in your paint so that you can keep on enjoying your baby in this nice weather. What you’ll need:

Touch up paint matching the paint colour of your car. Spray can is the easiest way. Do Not buy the Pens.

Caranuba wax (I use this stuff, it’s amazing. Get the 16oz liquid, it’s easier to work with)

Case of Cold Beer

* I added links to the products I used above due to the many emails asking for specifics on what I use.

Step 1) Wash your car. Get all that dirt and grime off of it so that you can see the extent of the damage much more clearly.

Step 2) Take your finger nail and feel the scratch. Does your finger nail get caught on the edges of the scratch or does it still feel smooth? If You can feel the scratch with your nail, you are through the clear coat and into the paint and this is considered a deep scratch. Continue to follow this guide to help restore the looks of your car. If the scratch is smooth then refer to the “How to fix minor scratches” guide (coming soon).

Step 3) The deep scratch has probably created somewhat of an edge, lets try and smooth it all out by hitting it with a round of rubbing compound. So lets start out with the preliminary stage of repair.

1) Apply rubbing compound to a cloth (I like Cheese cloth for this). I also recommend doing this by hand; as using a buffer with rubbing compound can destroy paint very, very quickly. Take the rubbing compound and begin applying it to the scratch in a circular motion. Work a small section at a time (roughly 3.5″ wide). Apply this for maybe 15-20 seconds per section. Don’t push too hard, let the cloth do the work while applying only a tiny bit of pressure (think about the same kinda pressure you use to dry the car after a wash)

2) Take a separate clean cloth and wipe/clean away the rubbing compound. Don’t mind the dullness that is present in your worked paint sections at this time. Don’t worry, this wasn’t suppose to fix your scratch/keying…but the scratch might look a tad skinnier right now (maybe, maybe not)

3) wash this tiny section down that you have just applied rubbing compound to. This step is EXTREMELY important. MAKE SURE you get ALL the rubbing compound OUT of the scratch. Remember, this is a deep scratch, which means content/residue can hide in the crevice. This area MUST be spotless. Once clean move on to step 4

Step 4) This is the hardest part, mainly due to the fact that the inconsiderate goof probably didn’t key/scratch your car in a perfectly straight line, if he did, consider yourself lucky. What you are going to need to do here is take painters tape and very carefully tape the outline of the scratch so that absolutely nothing is showing but the scratch itself. I recommend doing the bottom of the scratch first (entirely) and then taping the top to match (or vice-versa). Take your time here, if you cover part of the scratch it will not get painted, if you leave a painted portion uncovered, it will look like crap. Be very diligent taping the section off, Let me make myself extremely clear here….When you look in between your two lines of painters tape, you should not see anything other than the white from the scratch. If You have multiple deep scratches directly on top of one another (in other words they are touching each other), unfortunately this is going to take you a couple of weeks to repair as you can only do 1 scratch at a time and the paint needs 1 week to cure) Do not try and glob paint on here to cover multiple scratches if you cannot get painters tape in between the scratches to protect the “good” existing paint you need to do it in sections I’m sorry. Alright, so you’re done taping off the scratch, now take some newspaper and tape it to the remaining good paint in the immediate vicinity to protect the rest of the good paint. Don’t be skimpy here, you want room to overspray your can so you get a nice clean sweeping motion that is uninterrupted later. You don’t want to get over spray either from the touch-up paint or the clear coat on the rest of the paint. Here is an idea of what I am talking about (I already started painting when I snapped this picture that is why you see the black paint line, and it is much thicker than the scratch.)

Step 5) take an alcohol pad and wipe the scratch one last time. I can’t stress how important it is to have this area clean. If it’s not clean, your paint will not adhere properly.

Step 6) Now you are ready to begin applying the paint. Whether you are using a brush or a spray can, make sure you apply very even layers. Don’t worry about if your first pass with the paint has not covered the entire scratch. Follow the directions of your touch up paint, most instructions tell you to apply your coats within 10 minutes of each other. Take your time and apply 3-4 coats of paint. On your last coat you can go a tad thicker, but thin even coats are best.

**Note if your scratch is right down to bare metal you’ll want to put on 1 coat of primer paint before you paint the area. If you are not down to bare metal than primer is not needed. I painted mine with a brush because my touch up paint was water-based and in a jar (given to me by a body shop that had painted a part for me in the past) What this entire process is doing is filling in the deep scratch to build it back up to the height of the original paint.

Step 7) Now it is time to apply the clearcoat. This follows the same rules as the paint above, continue to apply the coats within 10 minutes of each other (or follow the directions on the can). This will likely come in a spray can, so again, apply 3 even thin coats to the scratch. Apply this in nice full sweeps of the scratch. Note that with the clearcoat it may look as if when you swept across the scratch nothing applied, it did, remember, this stuff is clear. Don’t keep trying to cake it on, take my word for it, it’s there.

Step 8) Immediately after you have applied your final coat of clearcoat, begin slowly and carefully pulling the tape off. Because you have painted such a thin line, you don’t want it to dry on the tape and possibly be pulled off later when you go to remove the tape, remove the tape now. Note that at this point the scratch will look awful. The paint and clearcoat will have created a raised bump, the part that was scratched will now sit higher than the rest of the paint. Don’t worry about that, this is what is suppose to happen, just don’t touch it…let it be.

Don’t move on to step 9 until a minimum of 7 days have passed to let the paint fully cure on the car.

Step 9) Back to using the rubbing compound. Follow the same exact steps you did in step 1. When completed move on to step 10.

Step 10) Apply polishing compound. Note that this is polishing compound and not polish (please click on the materials link at the beginning to see the difference), there is a difference and people sometimes get them confused. Apply the polishing compound the exact same way that you would the rubbing compound in the step above. When done, move on to step 11.

Step 11) Crack out that package of Quixx. This stuff is phenomenal and one of the key reasons that this comes out so nicely. Follow their instructions. Start with the piece of sandpaper provided. Wet it and begin working on one side of what was your deep scratch. The only pressure you should use here is enough to hold it on the surface of the paint, very light. Keep it flat with your two fingers and rub it in a circular motion on the scratch. Do about a 1inch section at a time. **Note that you can only sand once for a maximum of 15 seconds. Do not do more than this as you will destroy your surrounding clearcoat. I sanded my scratch for only about 10 seconds working an inch section at a time as I worked all the way down the entire length of the scratch. Make sure that you keep the sandpaper wet or it will not work/slide nicely. Don’t go buying your own sandpaper either, this isn’t your run of the mill stuff at your local store. Use what is provided in the package

Step 12) Apply tube 1 (as labelled) on the cloth that they give you. You need to apply a lot of pressure here, so make sure you are doing this on a day that you haven’t just come from the gym with jello arms. I worked about a 4 inch section at a time. Work this paste into the scratch for a minimum of 2 minutes per section. Be sure to wipe off any excess when finished.

Step 13) Apply tube 2 (as labelled) on the other cloth they give you (DO NOT use the same cloth you used for tube 1 with tube 2) Same thing as with tube 1, work a 4inch section with A LOT of pressure for a minimum of 2 minutes before moving on.

Step 14) Almost done. Apply polish (not polishing compound!!) to the scratch. Work it in a small section at a time. For this step you can use a buffer if you are familiar with the operations of it, if not, continue to use your hand. Follow the instructions for your Polish here. Mine stated to let it haze up, and then wipe it off. I applied 2 coats of polish.

Step 15) Apply your Wax the same way you applied your polish. I like the caranuba wax. Just like the polish, I like putting on two coats of wax.

Step 16) Step back and enjoy your hard work. You no longer have any deep scratches on your car. Best case, you can’t see the scratch anymore. Worst Case, you can’t see it from about 2-3 feet away if you have done this properly. This is how my scratches came out. Note that on the rear panel you can still see the scratches on the fuel door. This is because I did not address/paint those at this time.

Step 17) If this guide helped you- share it! Put it on Facebook, twitter, google plus, pin it, reddit, etc. Post it on your car forums- I don’t want money or anything superficial, I want the satisfaction of knowing this helped someone else out of a bad day of misfortune!

112 comments for “Fix Deep Scratches and Key Marks”

Works for any colour- Actually, when I finally get around to fixing a few scratches on my sunset orange metallic Camaro (which I just bought not too long ago and it came with a few scratches) I’ll post up the pictures! So far I’ve done black and silver cars with great results!

I see some people have sent you pictures of there projects. Would it be OK if I sent you mine? My scratches are both deep and light from a pillar in the garage not a key but would like to see what you think, if your method would work for me.

How do I contact the original poster of this article? Id like to ask why only a couple feet of the scratch were taped off on the front fender and the rear quarter panel when the scratch ran up the entire side of the car! There wasnt any documentation or statements on this. Im assuming they got most of the scratch out with the compound and only repainted what was actually “deeper” or through the clearcoat? Basically, the way the article looks, there should be several feet of unfixed scratch and only about 15 inches before the front door and mabey 20-24 inches on the rear quarter that are fixed. Im not bashing or trolling, Im actually wanting to apply this method to a depp scratch that went through the clearcoat on my truck but do not want to paint and clear un-necessary areas or leave exposed scratched areas. Can I assume that what rubbing compound doesnt remove must be painted and cleared or are there other steps to try to remove marks before actually painting? I really do appreciate this article!!

Yes, actually funny thing is the Camaro was hit across 3 panels, all of which were different materials- ironically enough that makes for the perfect “classroom example” I suppose you could call it (let’s try and take some good out of this situation that occurred!) The 3 panels on the Camaro were metal, plastic, and a fiberglass carbonate.

Thanks a million for your wonderfully-detailed description (for auto work “dummies”–such as myself!😉I can hardly wait to give this a try! I have a beautiful, high-end Buick–& could cry, looking at the scratch!
I’m not qualified in any way to do this repair (except that I’m (1). broke; (2). very patient with tiny, detailed work; & (3). I am somewhat artistic & have an eye for detail (so I am counting on your expert advice l, and my willingness to DIY!).
Thanks again for taking the time to so clearly explain the process!

You could, but I found early on that the bristles seem to come off of the brush and it is a little bit more difficult to get an even coat when using a brush. I prefer a spray can having done it both ways now.

I have a pretty large scrape at the bottom of my rear passenger door. Don’t have any idea how it got there. It’s probably half an inch wide and eight inches long. Any idea if this will help much? It’s an older car and I mostly want to protect it from rusting, but paying a pro is 100% out of the question. -___-

it will definitely help, although being 1.5″ wide I doubt that you will full be able to blend it to make it disappear, but it is worth a shot! Worst case, getting a coat of something on there will prevent the rusting like you want.

It is just tough to say as I have not repaired a scratch that wide before…

Brilliant Post and really nicely done. It’s a shame people do this to cars, it’s like there’s a universal group of car keying enthusiasts because we arent lucky enough to escape this in the UK either! It’s frustrating to say the least!

People are awful and stupid and sometimes awfully stupid. I’ve had my car less than 3 months, it was keyed at work (I manage a convenience store). I was covering an overnight shift, my overnighter called in sick. A woman was waiting to meet her boyfriend in the parking lot, he didn’t show up after 2 hours of her blocking our gas pumps. She saw a car in the parking lot that she didn’t recognize as belonging to an employee, assumed her boyfriend was cheating on her since he didn’t show up, assumed the car belonged to the other woman, and keyed my car. Stupid!

Tough to say if it will come out just as good- I haven’t repaired a “flake”.

I would imagine it would still come out pretty good since you are building the paint back up to even height with the other paint on the car and then smoothing it out and polishing it up to match. Same concepts still apply…

what would be the best way of removing touch-up paint from about 1/5th of the key length. I attempted to use a bottle of the little touch-up paint glass bottles from the local auto-part store but it turned out to be WAY off in color. I now have an exact match in spray cans from Automotive Touch-Up.com They spent 2 months blending and getting the color to match exactly from a piece of the plastic bumper I sent them. I tried a razor blade but that doesn’t seem to want to get that touch-up paint off of there. HELP!! I’m stuck!!!

If I tape the scratch very closely, won’t that be easy to spot when it’s done? I thought you would have to blend the paint when spraying. Great write up. Going to take a crack at doing my car in the coming weeks…

Walked into my garage this morning and found that my 2005 silver corvette had been ‘keyed’ while in the parking lot of a hosted Halloween party. I can feel the scratch with my fingernails, but just barely. My finish on the vehicle is like brand new (always garaged and kept clean). I would like to use your technique but feel that the possibility of ‘making it worse’ discourages me from attempting this by myself. The keying line is so thin that taping it would get more ‘good paint’ than ‘key valley’. Is there a technique somewhere between minor scratch and deep scratch?

I have some deep & then just minor, not through the clear coat, so can I skip the painting steps on them, mind you it’s the entire car bumper to bumper basically, I bought it that way at an auction & hope to somewhat make it look better! Thanks so much!

Couple of scratches repaired with a brush sloppily by previous owner or dealership on a 2011 Tundra Barcelona Red Mica color plus a new open wound to the primer or better of my own. Will use technique to fix new damage but how to get the nail polish fix look to go away from the last idiots? I have painted about 20 years residential luba he commercially but need advice on this auto work please.

Hi
I’ve lived with some key scratches on my BMW for ages as i couldn’t afford to get 4 panels done! Coming across your instructions gives me some hope in sorting it myself. 🙂
Question for you is my car is a sparkling Graphite color, will this make it any harder to get a good finish?

If your at the point where you know it could not possibly be any worse then I’d say give it a go! I’ve been painting for years but never cars and have a few scratches on my car, this method sounds fine so I will give it a go. Thank you ;~}

Hi There, thank you so much for this comprehensive guide. I am planning on following it to fix a new Mercedes C 300 that someone keyed it or hit it with a shopping cart at the lower end of the driver’s door. I cannot tell what caused it and it’s frustrating me. However, I came across your article and wanted to take your opinion on how to fix it without paying so much money at the dealership. Could I send you pictures of it, so you can give me advice? It will be so helpful!

how about finger nails scratches, literally, how to cover it up? the person using the vehicle (that we’re planning to buy)has long finger nails and has a lot of scratches near the door handle and it’s very visible. thank you!

Our car just got vandalized and we are pretty sure it was done by a rock. We also are a little uneasy about doing it ourselves because some of the scratches are deep while others are not. We just got our car a few months ago and are very upset. We just don’t want to make it worse or spend 100’s of dollars on it. What are your thoughts?

Can you tell me what kind of clear coat you got? And is it possible to do this with a pen? A pen came with my car, and I don’t really want to go buy a spray if I don’t have too! Also, where can I get a primer? Thanks!

You did a really great job repairing that – I can still see a little line in the petrol flap cover but mostly I think you sorted that out. Actually, I just read that you said that beneath the image, so please ignore. It’s also not always the town jerk-off that does this kind of damage, it’s most often old ladies with shopping trollies that they squeeze into small spaces to pack their car. Either way, it sucks and your guide is very good.

So glad I found this! My boyfriend’s car got scratched with a stinkin’ key by people in his neighborhood who have a little bit too much time on their hands. Sent this to him, and he’ll be fixing the scratches in the summer, hopefully.

Hi, thank you so much for a great article and helping out people. I consider my scratch somewhere in between a super facile and deep, but I am really undecided to which way to go. Is it possible to email close up pictures and see if you could give me some advice?
Thanks.

Amazing guide! When are you going to post a “how to fix minor scratches” guide, that’s mentioned in the beginning? I’m preparing to take care of all my scratches and bought everything according to you guide, except for a primer for a completely shaved off paint on my bumper. I wonder if I need to buy something extra for minor scratches.

I haven’t had any minor scratches that I have needed to repair just yet. The one vehicle I intended on fixing minor scratches for I no longer have, as soon as one of my vehicles or someone I know has some minor scratches, I’ll repair and post the new guide

Hi, I don’t know if you will see my message, but I would like some advice on a scratch on my car. I actually can’t blame anyone but myself as I was trying to park my car between a gate and another car and trying not to get too close to the car I got way too close to the metal gate resulting in a very, very deep scratch 🙁 I am hoping I will be able to try and fix it myself but I might have to take it somewhere to repair it if I can’t.

Can I send you a photo to see if you think it could be fixed or if I need to take it to someone?

This is a great article thanks for the step by step. One question for you, how do you know when its a good time to apply the clear coat. I assume the base coat application will fill the depth of the scrach or just below the depth of the scratch and after that you apply the clear cloar? So the top part of the build up on the scratch will primarily be clear coat and not base coat, am I right?

HI – I’ve managed to put a particular gruesome scratch on my car in a sort of ‘v’ shape on one of the rear doors. I have absolutely no experience of repairing anything like this but also no money to pay someone else… The car itself is old and covered in other scuffs and tiny scratches, so I don’t mind if it doesn’t come out perfectly, I’d just like to protect against rust damage etc. Can I send you a picture and get your opinion of what might be possible?

Hi, your article seems very helpful. I just have a few concerns since my scratched car is pretty bad – it’s the entire car and someone got creative and made loops all around the car doors. Could I send you a photo for you to review? I’d like to fix this myself, but if it’s going to be too difficult, I’ll just bring it to someone. Thank you!

Hello, this article is amazing, I just bought all the materials today. I unfortunately had someone leave criss-cross key marks on my car, so I will have to spend several weeks treating each one separately. One critical question I have: since I will have to do several treatments due to the criss-cross marks, can I wait to do steps 9 – 15 after I have done my several separate treatments? Or do I have to do steps 9 – 15 exactly 7 days after? If not, it will be a few weeks until I do steps 9 – 15 but it would be easier to do that all in one sitting rather than doing it several different times. I hope that makes sense.

To explain it better, this is what I have in mind: Treatment 1 (steps 1 -8) of first scratch direction, wait 1 week then do treatment 2 (steps 1 -8) of second scratch direction, wait 1 week then do treatment 3 (steps 1-8) of third scratch direction, wait 1 week then do steps 9 – 15 on ALL scratches in one sitting. So steps 9 -15 would only occur once rather than 3 times.

Thanks for the article, I learned much just from reading it…however, I have a scratch that is atypical and would like to ask for some help…

My trunk was open when someone opened my garage door so a protruding metal plate from the garage door cut into my trunk edge deeply (imagine a “v” nick right on the lip and dragged a light scratch over the upper half of the trunk) so I didn’t think the article applied completely to my damage 🙁 I assume I would need a filler…can you recommend anything?

Thank you so much for doing this hands-on research and sharing! Have you tried doing this in the winter? It’s about 20 to 30 degrees in my garage right now. Should I worry about 1) cold temps affecting the paint cure and/or 2) grit/slush getting on the paint while it’s curing? Again, thanks!

Hi. If we are using rubbing compound before applying the tape and protecting the adjacent areas,
Won’t the compound remove the clear coat on these areas. When we then paint, clear coat and remove the tape, these areas will be dull as the clear coat will be removed. Don’t we need to clear coat these areas before final polish and wax?

Hi! Your article was very informative, every step was detailed great. I just recently had some moron take what looks like a pocket knife to my brand new Silverado (I’ve had the truck for 1 month). I got a quote from a few body shops and they’re all saying around $2500 for repair. I just can’t seem to think why it would cost that much! I would love if I could send some pics to you to see if your process is a good fit! I thin k your process could save me a ton of money, and would look brand new again Thanks for your time!

Can you elaborate why Pens are not recommended for deep scratches (I have multiple rather deep ones from garage pillar). Took the white paint away with Scratch Doctor, but was not able to polish even small light scratches). Will appreciate your advise.

Hi, I came across your tutorial after a search on google. The hood of my car had an obscene 4 letter word scratched into it. Im wondering if I try your technique, whether there will still be a trace left of it, in other words, you’d still be able to see what was scratched into it, because the area just around the scratch will be taped off. Fortunately, my car is a dark maroon color, so Im thinking it shouldn’t be as visible, but dont know for sure. Feeling really bummed out but there is a security camera in the general vicinity of the parking lot, so I’m hoping the culprit has been caught on video.

WoW !! Where do you live & can I hire you to fix my one scratch in my 1988 Chrysler LeBaron that is a Tomato Red in color. Or who would you recommend that you would trust that can affordably do this labor intensive process for me !?
I live in a suburb of Mpls., MN

That is a very thorough article full of details on how to repair scratches on cars thanks, really useful indeed. I have always used a mobile dent repair service myself rather than do it myself as they are relatively cheap and do a terrific job. http://www.removemydent.com/